Thoughtcrime? The ethics of neuroscience and criminality

Advances in brain imaging and neurobiology are revealing that the brains of …

One of the most thought-provoking sessions I attended at AAAS was "Nature, Nurture, and Antisocial Behavior: Biological and Biosocial Research on Crime." The three talks encompassed neurocognition, psychobiology, and a range of ethical issues that would make your brain spin if you thought about them hard enough. The topic has great potential for controversy, and it would be easy to interpret some of the data presented as an argument against free will. In some ways, however, I think it illustrates the mistake of thinking of nature and nuture as separate, when in reality the interplay between genetics and environment are inseparable, especially when it comes to criminal activity.

Antisocial behavior on the brain

The University of Pennsylvania's Adrian Raine gave an excellent overview of neurocriminology, which I'll attempt to do justice. Several areas of the brain have been shown to be implicated with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), commonly known as psychopathy or sociopathy. The frontal cortex is the large part of your brain that is responsible for higher reasoning and behavioral traits, and is one of the areas that has been looked at. It's smaller than normal in individuals with ASPD. Although there is a difference in crime rates between men and women, 77 percent of that difference goes away once you control for frontal cortex volume.

Dysfunction or abnormalities in other brain regions have also been associated with higher rates of crime and ASPD. The septum pellucidum is a region of brain tissue that separates the brain's fluid-filled spaces, called ventricles. During fetal development, there is an opening inside this tissue that usually closes up within the first few months after birth. Individuals for whom this doesn't happen have higher rates of arrest and conviction, and score higher for ASPD.

A key center of emotion activity in the brain, the amygdala, is another important region, and a study comparing ASPD and normal brains found deformations and a significant reduction in volume in the ASPD cohort. These were centered on the basolateral nucleus, which is responsible for fear conditioning. This suggests that one possible source of differences (or one of several interweaving mechanisms) is that ASPD-affected individuals don't form the same sort of response to fear as normal people.

One study that showed this assessed autonomic fear conditioning in 3-year-olds (this is done with a skin conductance test, as you can't put 3-year-olds in MRI machines and expect good results), and then followed up with the subjects 20 years later. Out of 1795 children assessed at age 3, the study was able to follow up with 411. One hundred thirty-seven of these 23-year-olds had criminal records; the remaining 274 had not been in trouble with the law. Looking at their data from 20 years ago, the criminal offenders all showed much poorer fear conditioning.

Does this hint at predisposition, and if it does, what should we as a society do with that information? As we'll see in a bit, attorneys are already beginning to use brain imaging and other neurological data in defense of their clients.

Several other brain abnormalities are linked to other crimes. Spouse abusers tend to show strong limbic and weak frontal activation when presented with aggressive word stimuli, suggesting a hyper-responsiveness to mild provocatory stimulus. White collar criminals have been shown to have increased cortical thickness in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, the precentral gyrus, and the temporal-parietal junction, compared to age-matched controls. Does this give them some cognitive advantages over the rest of us when it comes to spotting opportunities to benefit?

Not necessarily a life of crime

After Dr. Raine's overview, there were presentations from Nathalie Fontaine of Indiana University, and Dustin Pardini of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Fontaine's work looked at children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Five to ten percent of children, mainly boys, display CU traits, and also experience persistent antisocial behavior. Twin studies point to a genetic component, but there was no genetic or genomic data presented, despite the talk being titled "Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Development of Callous-Unemotional Traits."

Dr. Pardini's talk, which he cautioned was based on very preliminary data, looked at a striking statistic: 80 percent of delinquent adolescents don't offend in adulthood. Are there differences in the 20 percent who do? Brain regions that his study looked at are involved in judging reward and punishment magnitude, as well as prediction error (the ventral striatum), decision-making and set shifting (orbital frontal cortex), performance monitoring (anterior cingulate), and our friend from earlier, the amygdala. By and large, there were significant differences in these brain functions between normal controls, reoffenders, and those who had not been in trouble with the law post-adolescence. But the subjects were only in their early 20s, and the numbers of each group were fairly small, so it's hard to find firm distinctions between the delinquents.

It must be said that all of the data from all three speakers shows correlation, and to my knowledge there is no data showing causation. Furthermore, when thinking about the use of this sort of data as mitigating criminal actions, it's necessary to think about the big picture. A murderer might not have asked to have been born with a smaller frontal cortex or amygdala, but neither would they have asked to grow up in a violent household, a socially deprived neighborhood, an underperforming school, and so on—and all of these have been implicated in the genesis of criminal behavior. Biology and environment are inseparable, and reductionist approaches are inherently flawed.

But biologically deterministic arguments are increasingly being made in court. The most famous, as featured in the New York Times, was the case of Herbert Weinstein. Weinstein strangled his wife and then threw her out of a window in order to make her death look like a suicide. He also had a large cyst in his brain, which the defense team obviously wanted to use as mitigating evidence. The Judge ruled that the brain scans could be shown to the jury, but that they could not be told that cysts like Weinstein's were associated with violence.

Despite this, the prosecution was so afraid of the result that they plea-bargained the case down to manslaughter. I don't have a copy of the image to show you, but it showed a rather large hole where normally you'd see the right frontal cortex. I'm fairly sure that, had I been a jury member, I'd have thought that it was a reasonable argument.

As stated earlier, correlation does not mean causation. But, should causation be shown one day, what would that mean for our legal system and society at large? Should we be doing skin conductivity tests on toddlers and then locking them up based on the results? Should we give more weight to brain scans compared to upbringing just because you can show the former as a pretty picture?

It's not an area that lends itself to easy answers—these are questions that society will have to grapple with as the technology and science gets better. That discussion is already underway at a pretty high level; today the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues meets in Washington, DC, and neuroimaging is one of the two topics slated for discussion. You can even follow along in the fun, as there's a live webstream.

Several other brain abnormalities are linked to other crimes. Spouse abusers tend to show strong limbic and weak frontal activation when presented with aggressive word stimuli, suggesting a hyper-responsiveness to mild provocatory stimulus. White collar criminals have been shown to have increased cortical thickness in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, the precentral gyrus, and the temporal-parietal junction, compared to age-matched controls. Does this give them some cognitive advantages over the rest of us when it comes to spotting opportunities to benefit?

Which is why not only should there be a Mens Rea involved, but also an absolute standard. That your tumor or genetic variant makes you 'not of right mind' does not mean that you're not a danger to the rest of us.

Of course, I'd imaging that the same traits which can cause criminal behavior can also lead to behavior that is socially beneficial. Lack of fear can lead to acts of bravery, as well as acts of villiany, after all.

Call me old-fashioned, but I can't justify judging people based on anything other than their words and actions.

That's not old-fashioned, that's naive. At least, it doesn't help to solve any long-term problems if we fail to understand why people do the things they do, and it's becoming increasingly clear that's it's more than just because they choose to.

If we know for example that someone's brains make them respond to fear in a different way, we can develop strategies to help them understand this and "cope" with it to function in society.

But if someone is a danger, definitely isolate them, but figure out why at the same time.

It's a slippery slope argument (and I really hate that term). As the article states correlation does not mean causation but trying to refine this methodology further might not really help much. It might be like trying to refine the practice of Phrenology in that no matter how detailed you get in your measurements you might be going down the wrong path as people are still pretty randomly f*&#ed up. Be it the the makeup of parts of the brain or the shape and lumps of your skull, it might work on the populous in a general way but in no way defines all individuals.

As far as the moral thing goes? Call me old-fashioned, but I can't justify judging people based on anything other than their words and actions.

I agree, if you're talking about guilt vs. innocence ... take the guy with the cyst, for example. Even if we accept that the cyst "made him do it", does that mean he's not a menace to society? Of course not -- he's still dangerous, and to ignore that would be negligent.

But, in a compassionate society, we would use this sort of information to determine sentencing. If indeed the cyst were determined to be responsible for his violent behavior, and it could be safely removed, then it should be removed.

That would be the ideal situation. In reality (at least in the USA) I suspect this sort of information would be put to the same purpose it always has been -- getting a lighter sentence based on mitigating factors, while doing nothing to correct those mitigating factors afterwards.

Several other brain abnormalities are linked to other crimes. Spouse abusers tend to show strong limbic and weak frontal activation when presented with aggressive word stimuli, suggesting a hyper-responsiveness to mild provocatory stimulus. White collar criminals have been shown to have increased cortical thickness in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, the precentral gyrus, and the temporal-parietal junction, compared to age-matched controls. Does this give them some cognitive advantages over the rest of us when it comes to spotting opportunities to benefit?

How do you establish a control for spousal abuse?

Kinda simple really. Group A keeps their wives and is established as the control group. Group B's wives are replaced by ones that know when to shut up....

</Seriously.. this is a joke. It is not meant to troll or offend. It just popped in my head and I laughed a bit at myself about how wrong that statement was>

This will be really a hot button issue when we can "correct" these problems.

By performing any modification you would be inherently altering the individual forever. Then there isn't a guarantee that the the individual would commit crimes in the first place..

Is therapy that uses drugs like Valium any different? The person's behavior is radically altered, as is their outlook, and response to social stimuli. If we decide that it really is a "problem", and the individual consents (or loses the right to withhold consent by committing murder), do we ignore that fact that we can fix it?

Given more severe psychological problems we place some psychotic criminals in mental hospitals and drug them into oblivion.

Kinda simple really. Group A keeps their wives and is established as the control group. Group B's wives are replaced by ones that know when to shut up..

Wouldn't B be the "control" group? /duck.

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Which is why not only should there be a Mens Rea involved, but also an absolute standard. That your tumor or genetic variant makes you 'not of right mind' does not mean that you're not a danger to the rest of us.

I think the bigger point is, if you are in this condition, and let's assume some degree of this is caused by the tumor/etc, then putting someone in jail for their crimes is criminal in and of itself. Much like with drug offenders/etc, at that point, we should be looking at treatment options (of course, assuming we have them).

If you are looking just to isolate them from society to protect society since we don't know how to treat them properly, then we need to bring up the standard of living in jail, as condemning someone to our "modern" incarceration system is again, in my opinion, criminal if they are unable to properly regulate their actions.

The topic has great potential for controversy, and it would be easy to interpret some of the data presented as an argument against free will.

I'm sort of surprised you'd know enough neuroscience to write this article, but still allow for free will. Our system of law and punishment has very clearly not caught up to this reality (and I say reality because the evidence is very strong). A biological predisposition to violence does not excuse violence, but it may require us to rework our response to crime. We should do that which will reduce the possibility of violence in the future, whether that's medical care or therapy or prison. In some sense cause is really irrelevant, and a retributive motive for punishment of a criminal is wrongheaded. It's our natural emotional response, but that doesn't make it right.

I would have to take a position somewhere between Owen Tuz and omniron. Our predictive ability is not good enough, and quite likely will never be good enough to identify dangerous people to isolate before they hurt others. But, if we were to ignore knowledge we have available to us it wil lead to needless suffering. If a trusted source came to you and said A was likely to rob your home tonight, would you ignore it because A had previously done nothing nor said anything to raise your suspicions? That would be silly. There would be no reason to arrest him, a trusted source is not necessarily a source with accurate knowledge, but if you have predictive knowledge, use it in some measure.

So one day we'll be able to accurately diagnose whether young children of certain brain structures have a very high predilection to becoming criminal sociopaths as adults, especially when raised in abusive environments. So then we could either execute them or attempt to "correct" them through neurosurgery, medications, intense behavior modification therapy ala Clockwork Orange, and/or genetherapy or some combination of those? The future's gonna be awesome.

Despite this, the prosecution was so afraid of the result that they plea-bargained the case down to manslaughter. I don't have a copy of the image to show you, but it showed a rather large hole where normally you'd see the right frontal cortex. I'm fairly sure that, had I been a jury member, I'd have thought that it was a reasonable argument.

I wouldn't. If someone is unstable enough to murder someone they should be removed from society. I don't give one flying fuck whether it was nature or nurture or free will or neurochemistry that caused it, he is what he is and he did what he did. If the judge want to take it into consideration in the sentencing phase, and send him to a psychiatric ward rather than a prison, that's fine, but it doesn't influence whether he is guilty or not.

Which is why not only should there be a Mens Rea involved, but also an absolute standard. That your tumor or genetic variant makes you 'not of right mind' does not mean that you're not a danger to the rest of us.

Of course, I'd imaging that the same traits which can cause criminal behavior can also lead to behavior that is socially beneficial. Lack of fear can lead to acts of bravery, as well as acts of villiany, after all.

This is where the nurture part comes into play. My understanding, and it has been a while since I read the stuff, is that you are exactly correct. These fearless individuals, when they grow up in loving homes, become policeman, fireman, soldiers, etc. who live to be in dangerous situations required to save people. Their lack of fear leads them to operate on a different level in those situations as they are as comfortable in them as a "normal" person would be at doing their job.

If they grow up in abusive situations, their lack of fear manifests in an absence of a firm understanding of cause and effect. Or, the usual fear of punishment if one gets caught. It is kind of an interesting idea, a society either hurts itself or helps itself depending on its treatment of such individuals. They will be fearless, society as a whole determines how that will manifest.

This is all easily understood if one has spent any time around prisoners. If you do, you find that a lot of them are very personable, sometimes intelligent and fun to be around. One just has to remember, that if they perceive some benefit in killing you, they would not hesitate. This is not all prisoners, of course, but a subsection that is relevant to the discussion. It is also one of the best arguments for capital punishment. I am not a fan of capital punishment but these violent individuals are such a disruptive force there is some logic to applying it to their case. They are the ones gangs use in prisons to be enforcers. They are also the ones that terrify guards, they will kill a guard for $50. These fearless convicts upset the whole ideal balance of a prison system. People who just want to do their time get thrown into places where these people are the muscle gangs use to wield power. Guards who are getting paid minimum wage have to decide if it is worth it to cross the gangs or individuals who wield these people like knifes.

Leniency for these individuals is a fools paradise. If they are let out in the general population they will kill, terrify and maim again. If they are not segregated and placed in a super max facility or receive the death penalty, they screw up our prisons. People might not care, but just remember how many people we incarcerate for drug crimes who are not violent dealers.Or people who wont make the same felony mistake that landed them in prison. I believe we have an obligation to allow them to go to a place where the can do their time and not have to be placed in a society where these psychopaths are the muscle that gangs use to run the show.

If we get to the point where we an cure them and they are willing to take the cure, then we can be lenient. If not, their penalties should not be mitigated, as it does no good for society.

I don't give one flying fuck whether it was nature or nurture or free will or neurochemistry that caused it, he is what he is and he did what he did . . . it doesn't influence whether he is guilty or not.

I don't give one flying fuck whether it was nature or nurture or free will or neurochemistry that caused it, he is what he is and he did what he did . . . it doesn't influence whether he is guilty or not.

According to fundamental justice and jurisprudence it does matter.

This is exactly what I meant about our legal system though. Guilt is exactly the same regardless of circumstances. Now, whether they should be excused from prison (as recidivism is unlikely because there was cause, e.g. Self-defense, or corrigible disorder) is a separable question.

Science is great- If it was conducted with the utmost objectivity and the results of experiments were distributed to a rational and knowledgeable public. The reality of the public in the US is that they are so undereducated to what they should be that a studies like these feed the notion that Humans are so smart as to fix all the problems of this World. We cant and sometimes people do things to others and only the parties involved know why they it happens. They might or might not enlighten society as to why they commit crimes, but nobody would believe them anyway. They are CRIMINALS. There are smart and dumb, rich and poor, perfect human specimens and fugly people that commit crimes. We lock people for years when they are only using drugs. These drug users are not harming anyone but themselves. Society locks them up with criminals that actually hurt other people. How does that make compassionate sense. I could find a theory that some criminal behavior is controlled or exasperated by chemicals or lack thereof in the human body has basis. I could also see a reasonable correlation between how the brain was developed or currently works and problem management (i.e. to do a crime or not). The public thinks it is so black and white... nature or nurture. Maybe its some of both. Humans can be so stupid or so blinded by good intentions that we make our lives more difficult.

This is exactly what I meant about our legal system though. Guilt is exactly the same regardless of circumstances. Now, whether they should be excused from prison (as recidivism is unlikely because there was cause, e.g. Self-defense, or corrigible disorder) is a separable question.

FYI: Self-defense usually is an absolute defense. It is not a crime to defend yourself, eventhough there could have been a homicide. Thats different than being placed on probation or given a suspended sentence to avoid prison.

Several other brain abnormalities are linked to other crimes. Spouse abusers tend to show strong limbic and weak frontal activation when presented with aggressive word stimuli, suggesting a hyper-responsiveness to mild provocatory stimulus. White collar criminals have been shown to have increased cortical thickness in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, the precentral gyrus, and the temporal-parietal junction, compared to age-matched controls. Does this give them some cognitive advantages over the rest of us when it comes to spotting opportunities to benefit?

How do you establish a control for spousal abuse?

Compare spousal abusers to the general population. I'm betting there are numbers that tell you how many people are spousal abusers in the general population.

Maybe guilt is a poor choice of word because it comes with so much baggage.

Whether it was self-defense or not, the truth of whether one person killed another is a separable question from punishment for that killing. I'm not making a small point here for a redefinition of the self-defenders as criminals. I'm advocating for a wholesale restructuring of our justice system. Such a thing will surely not happen within my lifetime, there's no way most people will let go of revenge or retribution quickly (if ever), but I don't want you to confuse my point-of-view.

Compare spousal abusers to the general population. I'm betting there are numbers that tell you how many people are spousal abusers in the general population.

I should've been more specific. How do you establish a control for those who do not abuse spouses. The intent was to compare to those who do not have the behavioural indication so that you can establish a physiological difference. If the control includes abusers, the usefulness of that data is degraded *some.*

I should've been more specific. How do you establish a control for those who do not abuse spouses. The intent was to compare to those who do not have the behavioural indication so that you can establish a physiological difference. If the control includes abusers, the usefulness of that data is degraded *some.*

Uh... yes? I mean that is pretty obvious. This is why large enough sample sizes, repeated tests and proper methodology exist, to help reduce the noise.

People here seem very quick to jump to isolation and capital punishment, although I'm not sure why. Wouldn't it be far, far more sensible to test which behavioural modification strategies apply to these individuals and attempt to teach them ways to control their impulses? Fuller (1989) showed that paedophile recidivism decreased in the experimental group which was subjected to psychotherapy treatments that aimed to increase impulse control. There's no reason to jump to the conclusion that those predisposed to criminality must be banished from society before we've even begun to prove that they can't be helped to cope with their traits.

Despite this, the prosecution was so afraid of the result that they plea-bargained the case down to manslaughter. I don't have a copy of the image to show you, but it showed a rather large hole where normally you'd see the right frontal cortex. I'm fairly sure that, had I been a jury member, I'd have thought that it was a reasonable argument.

I wouldn't. If someone is unstable enough to murder someone they should be removed from society. I don't give one flying fuck whether it was nature or nurture or free will or neurochemistry that caused it, he is what he is and he did what he did. If the judge want to take it into consideration in the sentencing phase, and send him to a psychiatric ward rather than a prison, that's fine, but it doesn't influence whether he is guilty or not.

You're not arguing what you think you're arguing.

You don't find it reasonable that prosecutors would plea down to Manslaughter, instead of pushing for harder to convict First or Second Degree Murder charges? To convict him or First or Second Degree murder the prosecutors would have had to show some combination of premeditation and/or malice.

If you were on the jury, whether you liked it or not, you would have had to delve into the defendants state of mind; therefore consider any material effects the cyst had on his thinking. That is simply the nature of the charges.

The prosecutors actually took your view, "He killed someone so lock him up." and got him with the catch-all Manslaugher charge.

The complex interrelationship between environment and biology, nature and nurture, is the key point here. The real question should be, if these brain structures correlate with criminality, how do we *prevent* them? The brain is incredibly plastic. I strongly suspect that part of what's going on here is these brain structures are the physical manifestation of being brought up in abusive or non-nurturing environments in many cases.

Consider this: it's now been rigorously shown via long term studies that maternal consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy correlates strongly with lower levels of antisocial behavior by their children as adults. Fish oil supplements for pregnant women are likely a very effective crime deterrent, by helping children grow up with sound minds that can better understand the context and consequences of their actions. Finding out factors that encourage criminality shouldn't make us react by instantly thinking about locking people up, it should make us think about how to help them before they make poor choices. Criminality as a public health matter?

The complex interrelationship between environment and biology, nature and nurture, is the key point here. The real question should be, if these brain structures correlate with criminality, how do we *prevent* them? The brain is incredibly plastic. I strongly suspect that part of what's going on here is these brain structures are the physical manifestation of being brought up in abusive or non-nurturing environments in many cases.

Consider this: it's now been rigorously shown via long term studies that maternal consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy correlates strongly with lower levels of antisocial behavior by their children as adults. Fish oil supplements for pregnant women are likely a very effective crime deterrent, by helping children grow up with sound minds that can better understand the context and consequences of their actions. Finding out factors that encourage criminality shouldn't make us react by instantly thinking about locking people up, it should make us think about how to help them before they make poor choices. Criminality as a public health matter?

The complex interrelationship between environment and biology, nature and nurture, is the key point here. The real question should be, if these brain structures correlate with criminality, how do we *prevent* them? The brain is incredibly plastic. I strongly suspect that part of what's going on here is these brain structures are the physical manifestation of being brought up in abusive or non-nurturing environments in many cases.

Consider this: it's now been rigorously shown via long term studies that maternal consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy correlates strongly with lower levels of antisocial behavior by their children as adults. Fish oil supplements for pregnant women are likely a very effective crime deterrent, by helping children grow up with sound minds that can better understand the context and consequences of their actions. Finding out factors that encourage criminality shouldn't make us react by instantly thinking about locking people up, it should make us think about how to help them before they make poor choices. Criminality as a public health matter?

People here seem very quick to jump to isolation and capital punishment, although I'm not sure why. Wouldn't it be far, far more sensible to test which behavioural modification strategies apply to these individuals and attempt to teach them ways to control their impulses? Fuller (1989) showed that paedophile recidivism decreased in the experimental group which was subjected to psychotherapy treatments that aimed to increase impulse control. There's no reason to jump to the conclusion that those predisposed to criminality must be banished from society before we've even begun to prove that they can't be helped to cope with their traits.

This, pretty much. As they say in psychology classes, "early intervention is the key". It could be very useful to society if these tests were performed on infants just as certain other tests are done to determine developmental problems.

The costs of these tests would certainly be less then the cost of incarcerating them later in life. The real question becomes who administers the behavioral therapy? Most parents would probably do the best that they could with the information. Being that abusive parents are at the root of the problem, however, it does make sense to have some social programs in place.

...antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), commonly known as psychopathy or sociopathy.

Ars, APD is not the same as psychopathy, nor the same as sociopathy. All three concepts are distinct from one another.

You're both right.

The DSM-IV-TR lumps both psychopathy and sociopathy in under the Antisocial Personality Disorder diagnosis. Since this is the tome relied on by almost all mental health professionals for making diagnoses, at least in the US, I think that the author's lumping them together as well is technically correct.

That being said, there's been a great deal of argument within the mental health community about whether this way of classifying the disorders is correct. So much so that it appears the DSM-V is going to have a subtype that specifically delineates psychopathy within Antisocial Personality Disorder (or whatever they eventually decide to call it). No such love for sociopathy.

Also, some researchers, Hare in particular, are adamant that psychopathy should be differentiated from ASPD.

So with that in mind, BTKO is also correct.

However, until the DSM-V is released I think it's probably best to stick with the terms used in the DSM-IV if for nothing other than clarity in communicating about these things.

If nothing else, this goes to show that concepts involved in mental health are still largely in flux and our attempts at understanding the human mind still have a long way to go.

It's a slippery slope argument (and I really hate that term). As the article states correlation does not mean causation but trying to refine this methodology further might not really help much. It might be like trying to refine the practice of Phrenology in that no matter how detailed you get in your measurements you might be going down the wrong path as people are still pretty randomly f*&#ed up. Be it the the makeup of parts of the brain or the shape and lumps of your skull, it might work on the populous in a general way but in no way defines all individuals.

Phrenology - 1st thing I think of too when seeing articles like this. They also used to photographically average pictures of faces so that we could see what the 'average' criminal might look like. Didn't lead anywhere but it got them grants